Book Groups

The Archeology Book Group (AIA) meets once a month on a Thursday afternoon.   AIA is an independent group interested in reading about historic events, archeologically interesting facts and finds.  Book titles are determined by group members.  Copies of titles must be obtained by each member.    New members are welcome, please contact Myrna at mwsilville@gmail.com    Thank You.

Date: April 25, 2019 * Note:  Book Group meeting in Local History Room and 1 week later due to holidays

Title: The Dinosaur Artist: Obsession, Betrayal, and the Quest for Earth's Ultimate Trophy 

by, Paige Williams  

In 2013, the United States literally arrested the skeleton of a giant apex predator dinosaur slumbering in a warehouse in Queens. But understanding how this came to be first requires a panoptic survey of everything from the world of the Late Cretaceous period to the 1990s rise of right-wing politics in Mongolia. This is the dizzying task that Paige Williams, a staff writer for The New Yorker, has set for herself in “The Dinosaur Artist: Obsession, Betrayal and the Quest for Earth’s Ultimate Trophy.” What began for her as the tale of an unusual court case involving a rogue fossil hunter unspools in this book into a wide-ranging examination of the ways that commercialism, ambition, politics and science collide. [New York Times - Peter Brannen 10/18]

Date:  May 16, 2019

Title:  The Riddle Of The Labyrinth : The Quest To Crack An Ancient Code by, Margalit Fox  

Award-winning New York Times journalist Margalit Fox's riveting real-life intellectual detective story travels from the Bronze Age Aegean—the era of Odysseus, Agamemnon, and Helen—to the turn of the 20th century and the work of charismatic English archeologist Arthur Evans, to the colorful personal stories of the decipherers. These include Michael Ventris, the brilliant amateur who deciphered the script but met with a sudden, mysterious death that may have been a direct consequence of the deipherment; and Alice Kober, the unsung heroine of the story whose painstaking work allowed Ventris to crack the code.